Categorypersonal

Having been self-employed most of my life, and often been part of a peer-group that tends to be interested in experimenting with self-organization (cough did someone just say life hacks), I’ve had the privilege to be very much in charge of my daily routines for most of my adult life.

So I made a point early on in my career to experiment with them and see what sticks, what helps me be more productive, more aware, more awake, more creative—or simply be in a better mood.

After a period of experimentation, I tend to settle into a pattern that works well—for a while. The last few years, that has been a pretty steady, almost comically traditional day at the office, if with a somewhat relaxed schedule. I’d show up between 8:30 and 10, would have a lunch break (preferably without meetings), and try to leave between 5 and 7. At any given time the details would depend on the current ongoing projects: Higher workload meant longer and more intense hours, a lighter workload meant more time to read, write, and meet with folks. It was almost as if I had the most traditional routing because I didn’t have to. I got pretty effective and efficient with my workflows. This was pretty much a management schedule (as opposed to a maker schedule), optimized for conference calls and meetings rather than uninterrupted periods of deep work time that would allow flow.

But recently, especially since we had a baby, this has been a little less satisfying: I’ve been doing a lot more deep work (research, writing) that isn’t really all that compatible with a management-style schedule, so I’ve been needing more uninterrupted time to get into the flow. Also, I now need a bit more flexibility to take care of the little one or relieve M even while she’s on parental leave now (I’ll take a leave a little later, too). Still, it’s not like I need to simulate an “orderly” workday for anyone: There’s still no boss to convince I’m working if I’m not. Additionally to the deep work time I need more of, I also want to make a point of allowing me to put in more time to learn and develop new skills: It feels like I’ve been plateauing on my core skills and it’s time for upgrades in adjacent branches of the skill tree. (Yes, I’m nerdy enough that I used to play pen-and-paper role playing games.)

In other words, time for another round of experimentation.

I plan to read some more about opportunities and frameworks to optimize for combinations of deep work and learning new skills, and will seek out some the advice of friends who know more about this than I do.

In the meantime, here’s what I’ll be trying for a while:

Spend more time in offline, especially in the morning: No checking emails and social media for as long as possible in the mornings, and absolutely not before breakfast. This should help with mindfulness and to have more control over the way my day starts. I like to be proactive rather than reactive. The inbox is the natural enemy of being proactive.

More walks. I often and frequently walk, it’s the best catalyst I know for thinking through challenging problems. Recently I’ve fallen short, I’ve walked less than usual. This will change right away. Walking is the best thing ever.

Cluster meetings and calls in the afternoon. Part of this will be to have calls and meetings in the afternoon as much as possible. It’s my least productive time in terms of focused input/output, but it’s perfect for conversations.

I hope that this might lead to concrete improvements and outcomes:

Stronger focus for longer periods of time, which should result in more long text output (essays, blog posts, maybe a book or two).

Less reactive scheduling, and more productive use of my time.

More flexibility to be present in my family as the better use of my time leads to less time-at-desk and rather to better-output-per-day.

Both new opportunities and improvements in my practice through new skills.

Are there any techniques or approaches you found very helpful yourself? Give me a shout, I’m curious!

This is end-of-year post #10 (all prior ones here). That’s right, I’ve been writing this post every year for ten years in a row!

So what happened in 2017? Let’s have a look back: Part work, part personal. Enjoy.

Globally speaking I’d file 2017 under shitty year. So much so that I’ll try not to go into anything global or all too political here. But in terms of work it’s been quite interesting and impactful, and personally it’s been a pretty damn great year.

So, right to it!

The theme for 2017

Last year I wrote (and I’m paraphrasing to keep it short):

“(…) even in hindsight 2016 didn’t have one theme as such, but rather a few in parallel:
1) Growth & stabilization, in the business generally speaking, but also and specifically in all things related to ThingsCon.
2) Lots and lots of collaborations with close friends, which I’m grateful for.
3) Also, 2016 was a year for a bit of overload, I may have spread myself a little thin at times.”

Again, lots of collaboration with old and new friends. But this year I was a lot more focused, with lots of research that allowed me to go deep. I’d say in 2017, the theme was first and foremost impact. Impact through large partners, through policy work, through investments into research.

Friends and family

Overall a bit of a mixed bag.

The bad: Some family members had health issues. Some friends received some nasty diagnoses.

The good: Some of the health issues were solved, we got to spend lots of time with close friends and family. Also, lots of babies were born among our friends, including one of our own. Welcome, little K! To be honest, this alone would make me love 2017. So yay, personal 2017!

Travel

For years I had been trying to cut down a little on travel to a somewhat more sustainable level. It kinda-sorta worked in 2017, at least a little bit. Still ways to go, but it’s a start.

Looking at my Tripit, this is what comes up. Tripit stats are a little fuzzy. (Did I mention I still miss Dopplr?) As far as I can reconstruct it on the quick, including vacation time I traveled to 7 countries on just 9 trips, and spent about 89 days traveling. (As opposed to 21 trips to 12 countries for a total of 152 days the year before.) So that’s great, even if it sounds like I might have missed a couple short trips.

Work

There was a lot going on in 2017, so I had to consult my monthnotes to refresh my memory. The focus is still, and ever more so, at the intersection of strategy, emerging technologies, and ethics/governance.

Lots of work around trustmarks and consumer trust generally speaking around the internet of things. Increasingly, artificial intelligence has also solidly established itself as part of the emerging tech canon I’ve been watching closely.

I wrote a lot. I mean, a lot. And I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. Outside my blog and some project-related newsletters and Twitter I did some long and short form writing:

If the writing is part of my overall communications landscape, then so is my website. So I relaunched that completely and restructured it for much more clarity.

I also got to work more with foundations, which is always fun. From workshops with Boell Foundation to research for Mozilla Foundation, the non-commercial, impact-driven sector is certainly an area I’d like to spend more time in.

Very Fun Side Projects

Then there are two “side projects” that have been especially fun this year: ThingsCon and Zephyr.

ThingsCon, our global community on a mission to foster the creation of a responsible & human-centric IoT, has been growing steadily. Milestones in 2017 include:

We launched the ThingsCon Fellowship Program to recognize achievements and commitment that advance the ThingsCon mission of fostering the creation of a responsible and human-centric IoT generally, and support for the ThingsCon community specifically. Shout-out to our most excellent six initial fellows, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Ame Elliott, Dries de Roeck, Iohanna Nicenboim, Michelle Thorne and Ricardo Brito. I hope we’ll get the fellowship program into full swing in 2018!

New cities with salons or conferences around the world. Let me use stats from November: At that point ThingsCon events have happened in 20 cities across 12 countries, from Berlin to Brussels to Amsterdam and Milan to London and Shanghai to Austin and Copenhagen and Nairobi.

I can’t possibly tell you how awesome this is for me to watch and experience. Learn more at thingscon.com.

Zephyr Berlin, the trousers/pants project M and I launched on Kickstarter just over a year ago, continues to be a lot of fun. Just a few weeks back we produced another small batch of men’s trousers, this time with super deep pockets to make things like cycling with large phones super easy. So there’s a new batch of men’s, and a very small number of women’s available. Check out zephyrberlin.com to learn more.

Conferences

A lot less conference work this year. What I did in terms of conferences was mostly for ThingsCon. I always enjoyed conferences (both the curation and the planning, but the curation much more than the planning), but not having a conference to plan isn’t too bad either, to be honest. A lot of my other work, especially the writing, would not have been possible if I had committed to another conference.

As a directly related note, without the fantastic, lovable, smart and endlessly committed ThingsCon Amsterdam crew and their annual ThingsCon event (it just happened for the fourth time!), ThingsCon also wouldn’t be what it is today. My eternal thanks go to Iskander, Marcel & Monique and their team.

Speaking

As part of my cutting down on conference travel, I gave just a few talks in 2017. Most of them focused on IoT and consumer trust.

There were a few at ThingsCon events like in Berlin and Shenzhen, others were at Underexposed, TU Dresden, Netzpolitik conference, DevOpsCon, and Transatlantic Digital Debates. There were also a few (paid) in-house talks.

Media

It was a pretty good year for media and writing. Among others, my thoughts or projects were mentioned/quoted/referenced/etc on CNN, SPIEGEL, and WIRED. I had some interviews—the lovely conversation for Markus Andrezak’s Stories Connected Dots stands out to me.

Things started and discontinued

Started:

Writing more, if you’ll forgive me going so meta.

Continued:

Zephyr Berlin, producing pants that travel extremely well.

ThingsCon as an event platform, and growing it beyond that into other areas of engagement.

Discontinued:

My Facebook account, just now as I’m writing this. Bye bye Facebook. You feel like Old Social Media by now, not worth having around.

Firsts & some things I learned along the way

Firsts: Wrote a ton of long form and launched it properly. Cut an umbilical cord. Diapered a newborn. Merged photo libraries.

Learned: How to communicate my work (focus, offering, structure) better (as the website will demonstrate). To make time for writing, thinking, processing input. Some Python. Some more about tech policy. These are all qualitative upgrades in my book.

So what’s next?

It looks like 2018 might bring a fantastic opportunity to continue some of my work from this year and before in a big-impact context; if this happens, I’ll be extremely happy. (If not, I’ll continue chipping away at the same issues with all the means available to me.) I hope to continue doing lots of research and writing. I’ll take some parental leave at some point, and otherwise spend as much time as I can with the baby. (They grow up so fast, as I’m learning even now, after not even a month.) Some travel, and hopefully once more a month or two spent working from a new place.

I’m always up for discussing interesting new projects. If you’re pondering one, get in touch!

I’m not leaving in a huff, nor to make a strong statement. I simply haven’t been getting anything out of Facebook in a long time and like to do a good house cleaning from time to time.

To be honest, I’m a bit surprised myself to find myself leaving out of disinterest rather than conviction. (I do feel a little ashamed of that fact, but there you go. We all contain multitudes.) I never particularly liked FB, but used to use it a lot. And as someone who for a long time worked professionally in/with/about social media, there simply wasn’t a way around it, and that was ok, and I would say “I’m not a fan, but it works for x or y, and there’s no way around it anyway.” In 2017, this feels patently untrue.

I’d like to stress that I’m not judging for using or not using FB or any other platform. People like what they like, and it’s ok!

Personally, to me Facebook feels like an outdated model of social media. It feels a bit like reading the news on paper rather than my phone: It might be ok, but it’s just not for me anymore.
Social conversations still happen of course, but the semi-public model, and more importantly the model that’s financed through driving up “engagement” (read: anything goes that gets you to click “like” or “share”) is one that feels kind of dirty by now.

For me, the conversations happen across a number of platforms. Slack and Whatsapp are a constant presence in my communications landscape, I still enjoy a good private Instagram, and of course I never left Twitter: It’s still the platform I use most, every single day, and I still get a lot of interesting and helpful interactions there every day. (I’m old school that way.)

Again, this isn’t a political statement. I’m 5 years too late for that, when many of my early adopter friends left. It simply feels like the party is over. That said, I’ll be happy to vote with my feet and take a tiny, miniscule fraction out of the “monthly active users” stats away with me. Facebook aligned its service a little too perfectly with their financial incentives, and picked dangerous incentives for my taste.

I’m of course a little worried about losing some contact details. I’m afraid there’s only so much I can do about that. The best I can do, at this point, is to share my contact details and hope everybody who needs them notes them down. They’re also easy to find online.

I might also keep a shadow profile to occasionally have a look at some pages I (notionally) manage. But given that we haven’t done a great job maintaining those anyway and you can tell by the lack of conversations there, we might just delete them altogether. The conversations for ThingsCon and my other collaborative projects are happening on Twitter and Slack anyway. Maybe it’s better that way.

In July & August, we spent about 3 weeks in Spain: First in the Pyrenees around Ordesa Valley, then in Basque Country along the coast in San Sebastian, Getaria and Bilbao. Here, with a delay of just a couple of months, are some travel notes.

Ordesa Valley, Torla

Day 1 / Ordesa Valley

Today’s hike: Faja Racon
11 km, 580m ascent, 5-6 hours
“This path under the northern cliffs is overlooked by many visitors but it’s one of my favourites. You really get close to the cliffs walking directly underneath them and get an idea of the scale of the valley. There’s a lovely contrast between the bare rock of the cliffs on your left and the lush green woods sloping away to your right. There’s a good chance of spotting sarrios (chamois) on this route as well as lammergeier.”

This was a beautiful hike with great views of Vale de Ordesa, but also very seriously steep hike in places. Highly recommended.

Day 2 / Ordesa Valley

“Most day hikers take the path on the valley floor. A good easy to follow path winds through lovely beech and silver fir woods with cliffs flanking you on either side. You pass several fantastic waterfalls before the woods open up to meadows that are filled with flowers in early summer. The trail ends at the waterfall in the Circo de Soasa with Monte Perdido dominating the skyline above.”

Day 3 / Ordesa Valley

Glorious nothingness but strolling, eating, reading.

One small caveat: It seems I’ve somewhat put out my back, so visit the the local emerging room. I leave with a handwritten subscription—literally handwritten on a piece of blank paper—and get some meds.

Day 4 / Ordesa Valley

The meds seem to be working, but I figure it’s better to take it easy today.

Day trip to Jaca for a lazy stroll in the mid-day heat, and a visit to the mid-19th century citadel. We skipped them military miniatures museum inside.

Day 5 / Ordesa Valley

Vale de Bujaruelo. Another extremely lovely, very accessible walk. Shorter, much shorter, than the other ones, so we did two rounds. Back’s getting better.

At night, loud moo-ing and the hollow clanking of cowbells wakes us. A cow herd is driven by the hotel along the only street along the valley. It’s hypnotic, almost ghostly, to see these cows slowly ambling by in the 4:30am darkness.

Day 6 / Ordesa Valley

We tried to find another super easy route while my back is in recovery. We poked our heads into a few different caminos, but they were all quite steep and rocky, aka not-back-friendly. In the end, we ended up walking along the valley on a very lovely route along the river through the woods, then sat and chatted, feet in the refreshing river, until our toes got almost numb. Perfect!

More cows at 4:30.

Day 7 / Ordesa Valley to San Sebastian via Pamplona

Last night’s cow herd was later, but much larger than the previous nights.

It’s pouring. It’s been pouring all night. We grab a last breakfast at the spot that has become our go-to place, then off to Pamplona. On the way, we stop by at the medical center once more to check if we’re owing any money; the doc had been vague about that, or maybe our Spanish wasn’t up to snuff. We settle the bill, and are off to Pamplona.

On the way, we rip through a large part of the excellent S-Town podcast.

Pamplona makes for a great lunch stop. We park near the bullfighting arena—the last annual bullfighting week happened was a week or so before we got here—and stroll the city. The old town is quite lovely. Above the market hall we find a restaurant that serves an excellent watermelon gazpacho, then are off to our final destination for the day, San Sebastian.

Our apartment is smack in the center. The city is bigger than I remembered. Full with tourists, but very laid back. An upscale beach & food town, essentially, which is just what we’re after. After scouting out the beach and our immediate neighborhood, we eat pintxos (Basque tapas) at Atari Gastroteka, where we also put in another reservation for the day after tomorrow.

Day 8 / San Sebastian

Sakona coffee roasters & Kafe Botanika & La Cuchara de San Telmo. In between, lots of strolling, swimming, a couple of concerts at the jazz festival.

Day 9 / San Sebastian

After coffee at Sakona, hiked to Pasaia/San Pedro for lunch. Gorgeous 3h track, but upon descent no decent food. Back to San S!

Swing-by at the art fair, which was largely ok but not super inspiring. Discovered a fun & playful artist, though, Daniel Sueira.

Some laptop time.

Botanika for a vegetarian dinner (at long last, the food has been incredibly meat-centric) over live music. Caught a bit of The Lucky Chops’ concert at the jazz festival’s beach stage.

We’ve been lucky to absorb a lot of gigs in passing thanks to the ubiquitous jazz festival.

Day 10 / San Sebastian

It pours. Not all day, but frequently. After running some errands (haircut, post office, etc.) we do a lot of walking and reading, hiding out in cafés whenever necessary. It’s almost warm enough to go swimming in the rain.

In the evening, we’re back at Atari for a massive, long dinner. We sit outside under the awning. Across from us, the church’s front steps are teeming with people having drinks and pintxos.

Day 11 / San Sebastian

We’re surprised by a public holiday, so most things are closed. We take it easy, swing by Sanoka roastery, take a longer walk along the river. We check out former tobacco factory, now cultural center and museum Tabakalera—gorgeous building and a noteworthy, lovely little shop downstairs for art prints and some cute clothes.

Later we visit the excellent San Telmo Museum which featured a range of exhibitions including paintings from 5 centuries, photos from fashion photography pioneer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, an exhibit about the changes in Basque country throughout modernity, and a big one on Alfred Hitchcock and his works.

Day 12 / San Sebastian

Today, some friends are joining for the next few days. V, a close friend from my days in Sydney, and his travel companion J. We pick up Vinci at the Guggenheim in Bilbao (J sticks wants to spend some extra time at the museum) and head on up the coast for lunch.

Afternoon swimming at the beach. First time since my back troubles, and it feels fantastic.

Bar hopping for pintxos in the evening till late.

Day 13 / San Sebastian

After a yummy breakfast at Sakona & picking up some beans for home, we took a walk around the little peninsula that stands out into the sea behind the old town.

For lunch, we hiked up part of Mount Ulia for the degustation menu at Mirador de Ulía, which was spectacular. Between 14:30 and 18:00—a proper San Sebastian lunch!—we sampled some 9 main courses plus some in-between-courses like pre- and post-desserts. The food is matched only by the view, which is also incredibly. Highly recommended!

A swim later, we’re back in old town for more pintxos, this time at Atari Akademi (Atari’s “lab”) and La Cucharra de San Telmo.

We’ve managed to properly adapt to the perfect state of being in San Sebastian: A mellow state of mind coupled with a constant readiness to enjoy a bit of excellent food or drink.

Day 14 / San Sebastian

After avocado toasts at Sakona and some light shopping with M & V, we rent bikes. The city has excellent bike paths, and we circle the city in maybe 30 minutes. It’s a small town after all! Along the way we stop at the hill on the western end of the beach and take the funicular up the mountain to a somewhat derelict theme park.

My rule of thumb is: Never miss a chance to visit a derelict or abandoned theme park! You never know what you can see. In this case the view down on San Sebastian is spectacular.

We somehow miss the lunch slot, so quickly get something at the super market deli around the corner to eat at home. A little later, dinner brings all of us back to Atari for a proper sit-down feast, followed by a long stroll along the waterfront.

Day 15 / San Sebastian

We’re nearing the end of our stay in San Sebastian. J has left, but V spontaneously decides to do a few days of hiking along the coastal route of the Camino de Santiago, which goes from here along the coast west-bound. We’ll meet back up in Getaria, two days of hiking west.

For now, we have a shared lunch, visit Tabakalera—the culture center in a former tobacco factory—again for some art prints only to find the shop closed for siesta, and way beyond. A stroll later, and we’re off to the beach for a long swim as V heads off on his mini pilgrimage.

To recap, some of our favorite restaurants from San Sebastian at a glance:

Basque Culinary Center
Offer a tasting menu by the chefs of tomorrow
Paseo Juan Avelino Barriola, 101
Requires reservation up to a month in advance, only available May/June. We missed this, but I wouldn’t mind trying this if we’re ever back in town.

Day 15 / Getaria

After breakfast we hit the road west towards Getaria, a small Basque fishing village—and get there within less than half an hour. We take it easy for the day. I while away the afternoon with some pintxos and some reading at a terrace café, with a view of the old harbor.

Our hotel is on the edge of the tiny old town and has a lovely little garden and terrace with a spectacular sea view.

Day 16 / Getaria

We join forces with V once more for a day hike from Zarautz to Deba, where we first had lunch with him a week or so ago.

We start at Zarautz, walk along the promenade to Getaria, then follow the Camino seashell first to Zumaia where we break for lunch, then onto Elorriaga. There we spontaneously reroute and follow not the Santiago route to Deba but a GR branch as this one hugs the gorgeous coast. It’s a much harder route, but a more rewarding one. We catch the very last train back from Deba and finish the day with grilled fish in Getaria.

Day 17 / Getaria

M comes down with a bit of a cold, we take it extra easy. I’ve been meaning to surf, but today the waves aren’t there. So later in the day we do a little stand-up paddling, which turns out to be fun.

Day 18 / Bilbao

We arrive in the early, drop our car off at the airport, and head straight to the Mercado de la Ribera for lunch. A long stroll and some window shopping later it becomes clear that Bilbao is quite charming indeed.

Day 19 / Bilbao

From our base in the old town, we head on over to the Guggenheim. I’d been here before, more than 10 years ago. It’s still a gorgeous building, and luckily there’s a great Bill Viola exhibition on in addition to the regular exhibition.

The afternoon turns to evening at a local tapas bar & hang-out spot. The next morning we’re off to southern Germany.

Day 20-22 / Southern Germany

Family time for a few days.

As an aside, on the drive from the airport, next to a country road, I spotted a potato vending machine. A potato. Vending. Machine.

These are the quick & dirty travel notes from our second ThingsCon trip to Shenzhen, China. Read all posts from this series here (tag: ViewSourceII), or all blog posts relating to Shenzhen here (tag: Shenzhen). The latter one includes last fall’s trip to Shenzhen as well.

It’s ThingsCon Shenzhen day! I feel I’ve fully arrived: I’m totally in zen mode, happy to be in the moment and go with the flow.

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Flyer for ThingsCon Shenzhen

A big thank you to David Li and Vicky of the Shenzhen Open Innovation Lab (SZOIL) for making this event happen!

SZOIL

ThingsCon Shenzhen, doors open!

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Before the event starts, we have a little team huddle with David. He catches us up on some recent developments.

He shares the story of the kid from Laos who came to Shenzhen and built POS machines for Lagos’ street markets. It’s easy to forget that there are a lot of very, very different markets and approaches within IoT, and that Shenzhen truly manufactures for the whole world.

Today it’s cheaper to build a smart TV that runs Android than building a non-smart TV, David explains. The economics of large scale production can do wonderful, weird, twisted things.

A large shenzhai phone maker started making an electric car. We look it up: It looks a little like a golf cart and the interior seems cobbled together from medical equipment; it has no doors. But it’s a fully functional electric car. It’s about $1.000.

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There are around 50 people at the event, with a great mix of locals and visitors. Entrepreneurs, designers, some folks from incubators: a solid mix, it seems.

In Shenzhen, like everywhere, the movers and shakers seem to be the connectors that hop from place to place: Hong Kong, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, London…

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Please note: The following are quick and dirty notes from some of the presentations. I paraphrased as best as I could to keep up.

Jakie Yin of Rone Design is first. He showcases a wide range of connected industrial designs his company has been involved in. He also explains three distinct development phases for hardware:

Zero to one

One to hundreds

Hundreds to X

Each of them requires different skill sets, and/or partners. His company can help with pretty much all of them.

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Gabriel Ionut Zlamparet gives an intro to remanufacturing of used medical devices. Remanufacturing, re-use, designing for re-use has huge potential for sustainability. He share slides with great level of details.

How do AI and machine learning apply to social issues? How can they be put to good use in this context?

“If you can’t be counted, you don’t count. If you’re not connected, you don’t count.”

The Chinese social credit system—and similar approaches everywhere—means that keeping (algorithmically) bad company would implicate you even though you might yourself be squeaky clean, like for example bad credit records.

In China, QR codes make connecting easy. Outside of China, QR codes are often still considered awkward.

QR codes and NFC are powerful connectors. But they have challenges. QR codes have to be big enough. Who scans whom? NFC needs signage to indicate it’s an option.

Beacons are an options, very powerful, but still expensive. Onboarding is super easy, though, a pop-up notification is a well-known interaction.

Maybe you don’t need speech to activate a thing. Noise might be enough! You can make valuable assumptions from very little data.

Frictionless augmented reality. It’s pretty easy to do now within web pages.

Dietrich shows lots of cool demos of lightweight web-based AR demos.

Dietrich demos an experimental AR interface for a music player

It’s becoming super easy to access user media, too:

This is all it takes to access user media for AR.

This doesn’t work on iOS yet, but hopefully this year. Since the global market share of iOS is tiny compared to Android, this shouldn’t stop you.

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Monique hosts a panel discussion with Iskander, Holly, Marcel and myself. We talk about responsible IoT, and how it can be applied in the day-to-day work we all do. Also, we try to explore if there’s a special angle that European indie IoT creators can bring in.

Since I was on the panel I can’t share any photos, but there you go.

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Marcel gives some closing remarks:

Note the second laptop in front of Marcel? It’s an impromptu hack to let people scan the QR code to join our Wechat event channel. It makes connecting with other participants incredible smooth. We should, of course, have put this QR code up on the big screen all along.

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David runs a spontaneous session on how to source components in Shenzhen. After all, running around on the market to find parts is a lot of fun but it’s not the efficient way to find anything. Instead, Wechat and Taobao are good starting points.

David

Tipps, strategies, useful things to know:

Shenzhen is full of so-called technical solution houses. Solution houses build very specific technical solutions, help you solve specific issues. Say find or build or adapt a certain board. Most customers don’t ask for exclusivity. So these solutions can be re-used. There are somewhere between 5-10K of them. They can help you source.
You toss your requirements into a Wechat group: “Who has this?” You get a pretty good hit ratio: Either someone already has what you need, or they can help adapt it.

A solution house’s catalog.

Also, sometimes someone comes back to you and says: We’ve done this a year ago and couldn’t sell it. Are you sure you want to do this?

Wechat is the platform to find people and connect.

The timing also matters: During our last visit 6 months ago, smart bike locks were a fringe offering. Now, due to the big boom in sharing bike companies, there’s a wide range of offerings.

A lot of knowledge (technical, design, software) is in the technical solution houses. It’s often undocumented. This makes it hard to research: There might be really short roadmaps that aren’t shared. Wechat allows these providers to identify themselves and say: “Oh yes, we’re working on this, it’ll be ready in 4-6 weeks.”
*Harm confirms this: Searching for bike lock companies, the team found one through Wechat and arranged for a meeting to discuss details. It was all arranged within days, if not hours. “We definitively didn’t find what we needed at the market. What we were looking for was too specific.” *
These channels are for professionals. Wasting anyone’s time isn’t appreciated.

Harm’s sketchnotes are pretty awesome

Industrial design houses are also great interfaces for sourcing and more. They’re one abstraction level up, and they bring with them the connections to technical solution houses.

“There are no consultants in Shenzhen. No shipping, no money.”

Q: How about language barriers? When we visited design houses, our hosts spoke excellent English. How about solution houses?
A: It’s one abstraction layer down, more in the background. The language barrier might be higher, and you’re often talking to engineers. (Design houses might offer a softer landing pad.) Wechat translation can also help if you collaborate in writing.

David: The golden days of the market are over. Used to be easy money: Source 100 phones, flip them by the afternoon with $10 margin each, you got $1.000 in your pocket.

David: We see more entrepreneurs not coming here with their giant valuations but with solid business models. It’s a good development. (It reminds me of how different the early days of web 2.0 felt compared to the craze of the dotcom boom. This sounds similar.)

Connections are built from social networking: Trust and personal recommendations/introductions. Some companies are more careful today about who to spend time and effort on, to filter out the non-serious folks. But then again, of course nobody knows how to find the 1% of great ideas.

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We end up chatting for quite a while, then disperse: Some folks have more market to explore, others visit a design university. Some have meetings. I do a last round on the market, then people watch for a while.

On a bench, a young guy asks if he can sit next to me. I learn he works for a company that assembles phones. I ask if I can see one: It’s a rose gold Android phone, the case looks solidly made at first glance. I don’t want to dig deeper; I’m not sure if he wants to sell and don’t want to encourage him, but he does have a bag of boxed phones with him.

These are the quick & dirty travel notes from our second ThingsCon trip to Shenzhen, China. Read all posts from this series here (tag: ViewSourceII), or all blog posts relating to Shenzhen here (tag: Shenzhen). The latter one includes last fall’s trip to Shenzhen as well.

A t-shirt: “Don’t be original. Just be good.”

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We visit x.factory. Impressive upscale maker space with great equipment. Funded by a real estate company, of course. Planned official opening for the complex is July, so for the most part the building complex is still empty.

Near the entrance of the new complex, this skate park (or possibly just landscaping)

Note the trees in the photo above? They’re recently planted, hence the stabilizer beams. The whole site used to be a hill made of solid rock. (Keep that in mind, we’ll come back to it later.)

x.factory is part of the Chaihuo family of maker spaces. We had been to their smaller outpost at OCT-LOFT before. (Chaihuo and Seeed are very tightly connected, nearly interchangeable it seems. Within China, the Chaihuo name is very well known; abroad Seeed is the recognized name.) Chaihuo was co-founded by Eric Pan, who also founded Seeed Studios.

Wayne Lin, Director of Operations at x.factory, kindly gives us some insight into the history and future of China’s maker spaces.

Wayne gives us the low-down on the Chinese maker space scene.

ThingsCon site visit to x.factory

A picture of Shenzhen in 1980.

First maker spaces in Shenzhen started around 2013. HAX as well, and added a lot of energy. 2015 was a giant breakthrough year for this community. The government, industry, community all see huge opportunities for IoT and maker communities.

I can’t help but think that this situation is kinda-sorta like the exact opposite of Europe, where there’s too many ideas and project but not enough time in the day to make them all happen.

Monique

Iskander

But what’s happening in and around these spaces is also a process of maturing, and professionalization. Wayne shares: We’ve been talking for a long time that we’d like to move from “made in China” to “innovate in China”. And it’s happening.

Vanke, a huge (formerly state-owned) real estate developer as a partner for one explains this super high-end looking building. It also means an obvious opportunity for those teams that work on IoT and especially smart buildings: Vanke could be the biggest buyer.

Resources like tooling and manufacturing are available easily here at x.factory. This is a recurring theme on this trip: Resources (including funding) seem to be available if you have the right idea.

x.factory’s business model: A mix of small-batch manufacturing, distribution of maker products, provide modules (components?) for production. They also work with corporates like China Mobile or Tencent R&D. in short: 1) Prototyping and developing tech modules 2) manufacturing services 3) distribution and sales

“We’re like translators. We help makers develop and sell their products.”

An audience question about open source: “We need more projects that use open source.” They want to make an impact this way, and see open source as an exciting opportunity.

Wayne gives some background about the role of real estate and why they are so interested in this space: The property market in China is crazy right now. This also means a huge market opportunity for smart building tech and IoT. All of China is a construction site, lots of new buildings go up all the time. But how do you drive people to your mall? That’s a big challenge for many developers.

Asked about the future of Shenzhen, he says: Shenzhen’s future still looks bright. It’s a young city. Average age is maybe 30 years old. It’s very innovative and entrepreneurial. It’s one of the most exciting cities in China.
He adds: Sometimes more experienced people know better how to build a good life, more experienced designers know how to design better products even if it takes longer.

The concept of x.factory is that of an open factory, an open maker space. Openness and open source are at the core of the project. Many projects here have an impact way beyond one company.

Wayne during an interview for the documentary

We continue the conversation in a smaller group as part of an interview for the documentary that’s being shot about this trip.

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During an interview we hear choppers and explosions: For real estate development in this particular area, solid bedrock needs to be blown up. The very spot of the building complex we’re in used to be a hill of solid rock.

In the background, outside the windows, you can see the bedrock this complex is built on (and into).

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Outside the building, there’s a huge construction site.

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In an uber-cool and clean concrete and class office, behind a little curtain, there are a bunch of cots: A quiet corner for a post-lunch nap.

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Shenzhen’s official city motto: “Time is money, efficiency is life.”

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Maybe the most advanced smart rear view mirror I’ve spotted yet: This one show simultaneous live feeds from a front and back camera and records both—as far as I can tell in full HD.

Smart review mirror with full HD video recording

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Idea: Chinese maker spaces have great resources and expertise but lack projects. European creatives and entrepreneurs are full of ideas but might lack the time and resources to realize them.

Can we team up European creatives with design schools to share their project ideas, then master students under supervision by a professor, and in close collaboration with the creatives, own these projects and drive them. They realize them in China with the expertise and resources of Chinese makerspaces.

Chinese spaces get projects, students can cut their teeth, the ideas get realized. Everybody wins!

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A QR code on our lunch tables replaces the menu: Scan in Wechat to order and pay from your phone. Next level convenience.

Scan QR code to order and pay your lunch.

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I can’t get over the fact that the new HuaqiangBei road, simply by becoming a pedestrian zone, makes the whole area feel so much more tame than it felt to me just half a year ago.

These are the quick & dirty travel notes from our second ThingsCon trip to Shenzhen, China. Read all posts from this series here (tag: ViewSourceII), or all blog posts relating to Shenzhen here (tag: Shenzhen). The latter one includes last fall’s trip to Shenzhen as well.

The real life in HuaqiangBei is in the the back alleys. There’s great food, and lots of energy. It’s ok to watch. Just try not to to stand in the way.

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We tour the complex of SIDA, the Sino-Finnish Design Association, and our local ThingsCon host organization SZOIL. The whole complex is dedicated to design-related companies, from product design to 3D animation. Impressive walls full of awards drive home one point over and over again: China has been developing a design scene that’s worth taking seriously.

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The Starbucks in our hotel has this sign up. I’ve never seen this anywhere else.

“I’d like my espresso with 22 seconds or precision and passion, please!”

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Artefacts of Shenzhen: Smart flexible phone

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SIDA and their program SZOIL exist to help international companies get their feet on the ground in China, including help with understanding policies, getting work visas, finding funding.

For example, you want a robot. Drop by SIDA, explain your requirements and design, and they can help match you with some design house options, then it’s up to you.

Does Evan, who handles international partnerships for SIDA, have any recommendations for international companies who want to do business her? He says he recommends to gather as much experiments rather than theorizing: Be bolder, practice, practice, practice!

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Trying out a new translation app. It shows great promise for translating restaurant menus, and entirely failed me in a live interaction with a shopkeeper.

We discovered a new feature: Emotional translation. I seriously wonder how accurate it is in terms of actual translation? And maybe more to the point, I imagine you’d most need to deploy in in a moment of crisis—but how do you snap a photo of your counterpart then?

Test 1: I’m looking frown-y, and a bit weird. “Painful” works in a pinch. Check.

Test 2: Anh was more dubious than OK, but we decide to give it a pass.

Test 3: Jan-Geert’s smile is a Wonder Smile alright, but would that translation help me in any way? We’re doubtful but well entertained.

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It’s rainy. Very, very rainy. I get soaked trying to find a laundry place, and then even more when I continue on to the restaurant. We eat Sichuan food at Casablance—a place we had been to before. Nicely local but with a twist (or two), full of black and white movie references and a cat called “Chairman Meow”.

Stuffed with tofu, fish, shrimp, and “glutinous sesame balls”, lips still tingling from Sichuan’s famous numbing spice, I tap out early to get a little work done.

Glutinous sesame balls (a dessert)

I’m more than happy to see that part of the group continues to explore the city.